"thumper" wrote in message ...

On 7/6/2012 11:11 PM, Califbill wrote:
"thumper" wrote in message ...

How would you quantify quality of life? Shorter lifespan is somehow
better? As I said, If you are wealthy you always have alternatives.

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Longevity is not quality of life. My mother had quality of life for 92
of her 96 years. My dad had quality of life for 62 of his 68 years.
Bone Cancer killed my dad. A very bad way to go. I see a lot of excess
spending on extending life for a very short time. My mom's best friend,
Betty, had Congestive Heart Failure. 94 years old, and they spent
$63,000 to extend her life 1 week. that is wrong. when someone is the
far gone, why spend excess money trying to cure the incurable? Just
make them comfortable.

I agree with you regarding excessive and expensive measures when quality
of life is gone (assisted suicide, 'death panels'[family]?) but the
question remains as to how you would quantify effectiveness of a health
care system if not by longevity.
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My opinion would be how healthy are the people for their age. The last time
I was at Disneyland I was stupefied by the amount of morbidly obese people.
Morbidly obese parents with close to morbidly obese children. If you are
not going to teach people to not kill themselves with fat, why worry about
their longevity? If they do know about the health risks, then do the
minimum for health maintenance for them on our dollar if they can not at
least help themselves to better diet.